Sociable Lapwings shot in Syria

[Brian S]

I suspect a number of you have picked up on, and been disturbed by, the images by Remco Hofland of Sociable Lapwings shot in Syria. He comments:-
'A flock of 65 was all we could find of the 2,000+ birds present in the area (but we only had two hrs and there was poor visibility). Unsustainable hunting during the migration period, by both local and foreign hunters, is the number one cause for the sharp decline in numbers of this species. See http://77.167.75.191/doc/doc00232.pdf for more information..'

I hope that something is being done to try and educate the locals and curb the hunting. The attraction of foreign 'hunters' to go to Syria to shoot Sociable Lapwings is very worrying...

Brian S

[Colin Key]

Very interesting link Brian - a lot of work went into that report.

Dunno what to say really; I honestly think that time is running out and by the time any "educational program" is rolled out it will be too late.

Very depressing to see evidence of the way in which these uneducated (and uninterested) barbaric peasants treat wild animals as though they are just "free for all" to take - "nature's bounty". It is just the same here.

Colin :realmad:

[Alex Lees]

for recent updates see:

http://gettingsociableinsyria.blogspot.com/

[Derek Moore]

You have to remember a lot of the locals in this part of the World are hungry and have no perception of how threatened this bird is. BirdLife Int. are making great strides in this area including producing field guides in Arabic.

There is no excuse for "foreign" hunters though.

Don't get me wrong I was sickened and horrified by these images but no more so when I heard that the Welsh Assembly are going to slaughter 1,000 Badgers to in their words "eradicate Bovine TB"

[michael23]

lets hope good things arise, and we see an end to horrible sights like those.
Makes me really happy that i was in the right place at the right time in october 2008, isles of scilly to see one.
taken during fog and mist roling in
http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv283/michael23_photo/sociableplovercrop.jpg

[Colin Key]

A friend of mine has just posted this on Fórum Aves (it might have been aired on here, but I hadn't seen it). Very depressing reading:

http://proact-campaigns.net/italy/protest_new_hunting_laws.html

Colin :realmad:

[Colin Key]

You have to remember a lot of the locals in this part of the World are hungry and have no perception of how threatened this bird is.

Derek,

I really do not think that this is as simple as satisfying hunger. I have no experience of life and culture in Syria but I do know that in Mediterranean countries they think they have some God-given right to shoot anything that moves, and it is done for "sport", not for food. I see well-off Portuguese with expensive guns and brand-new, very expensive, 4x4 vehicles spending Thursdays, Sundays and Public Holidays (the official "hunting" days during the season) blasting everything that moves just for the sheer fun of it. The Italians and Maltese are the worst offenders in my own experience, but it is endemic everywhere in southern Europe.

I have witnessed some of these so-called "hunters" gathering at a local bar at Sunday lunchtime to compare their "kill" - the birds, mostly unidentifiable (ever seen a Goldfinch shot with a 12 bore shotgun?), are threaded onto a wire loop, the bounty is examined and then dumped in the rubbish bin. The cost of cartridges used in one day would probably keep a really poor family alive for a month.

Southern Europeans (and I expect it gets worse as one moves further East) simply do not place any value on wildlife; you only have to look at the way in which they treat their "treasured" domestic animals to realize that we are up against a totally different mindset here.

Colin

[Martin Scott]

We are now back in UK after 5 weeks in Syria working with SSCW, Syrian Government Ministries and the UN

some of the tales of our work and birds can be found at

http://gettingsociableinsyria.blogspot.com/

updates on this site will continue in weeks to come as we sort out images, write reports etc. We also hope to publish notes in OSME etc

For anyone who wants to visit Syria hopefully some of the info we upload will be of help. There are conservation issues in Syria, but it is a learning curve, and we must start at the beginning as they say.

Martin